Julia
Chapter Three
The invitation comes through my mother, but it's not really an invitation.
No hello. No question mark. No room for a response except obedience.
I read it twice, even though there is nothing complicated about it, then set my phone face down beside my keyboard and stare at the first page of the contract until the words stop blurring into a block of black print.
Your father expects you.
Of course he does.
Judge Patrick O’Brien has always expected things. Silence at the right time. Smiles in the right rooms. The right dress, the right school, the right friends, the right fiancé, the right life. My mother expects them too, though she phrases her expectations with softer words and better lighting.
I do not want to go.
That is the first honest thought.
The second is that I will.
By 6:45, I am sitting in the back of a car in a black dress that is too formal for dinner with one’s parents and exactly formal enough for dinner with my parents.
The fabric skims rather than clings. The neckline is modest. The sleeves are fitted.
My hair is twisted into a low knot at the nape of my neck, and I am wearing pearl earrings my mother gave me when I turned twenty-one because she said diamonds at dinner look desperate before marriage.
I wore them so I would not have to hear about what I chose instead.
The O’Brien house sits on a quiet street lined with old trees and older money.
Stone facade, black shutters, gas lanterns, clipped hedges, white flowers in planters that are changed with the season before any of them have a chance to look tired.
There is nothing out of place from the curb. There never is.
A man opens the front door before I can ring the bell.
“Miss O’Brien,” he says.
“Hello, Paul.”
His smile is polite and brief. He has worked for my parents for eleven years.
Longer, maybe. Time moves strangely in this house because nothing ever really changes.
Staff changes quietly. Rugs are replaced with similar rugs.
Rooms are repainted in shades that require someone else to explain the difference.
My father’s official portrait in the study gets dusted every Tuesday.
My mother appears in the foyer before I can take more than three steps inside.
“Julia,” she says, as if she has been waiting for me only because punctuality is an extension of character.
“Mom,” I reply.
Her eyes move over me quickly. Dress, hair, earrings, shoes. She takes inventory with the speed of long practice.
“You look lovely,” she says.
“Thank you.”
“You’re tired.”
There it is.
Not concern. Assessment.
“I worked today.”
“You always worked before. It didn’t show as much.”
I take off my coat and hand it to Paul. “I’ll try to look more unemployed next time.”
Her mouth tightens. “Don’t be sharp. Hugh and Bunny are already here.”
“Punctual.”
“And your father is in a good mood.”
Which means he expects everyone else to keep him there.
My mother touches my arm, light enough to be affectionate for anyone watching and firm enough to steer me toward the sitting room.
The house smells like lilies, furniture polish, and expensive white wine. It has smelled that way for most of my life. The foyer opens into a hall with marble floors and a staircase that curves just enough to be considered grand. The chandelier above it throws light over the walls.
My mother changes the flowers twice a week, whether anyone is coming or not, because flowers that wilt where guests might see them are apparently a moral failure.
I used to sit on the third step when I was small and listen to my parents host dinners like this.
I learned their voices through the banister before I learned half the things children are supposed to know.
My father’s public laugh. My mother’s softer one.
The way guests lowered their voices when cases, campaigns, donations, or favors came up.
The way everyone pretended dinner was only dinner.
Tonight is no different.
My father stands near the fireplace with a glass of Scotch in his hand, tall and silver-haired, every inch the honorable Judge Patrick O’Brien. He is in a dark suit, though dinner is in his own home, because my father likes reminders of authority even when he is standing on his own rug.
Hugh Vanderbilt is beside him, ruddy-faced and broad through the shoulders, with thinning blond-gray hair and the comfortable posture of a man who has never had less than nine digits in his bank account.
His wife, Bunny, sits on the edge of a cream settee with a glass of wine.
Bunny is not her real name. I learned that as a child and have never once heard anyone use the real one.
“Julia,” my father says.
“Dad.”
He kisses my cheek. His hand rests briefly on my shoulder. For anyone else, it would look warm.
“You remember Hugh and Bunny.”
“Of course.” I smile and cross to them. “It’s good to see you both.”
Bunny extends a hand. Her rings catch the light before her face does. “Julia, darling, look at you. All grown up and back in Chicago.”
“As of recently, yes.”
“We were so sorry to hear about Connecticut,” Hugh says, with the confidence of a man stepping directly onto a land mine because he mistakenly assumes it won't explode in his face.
My mother’s smile does not move, but I feel her attention sharpen.
“That’s kind of you,” I say.
Kind of. Useless. Inaccurate. Socially acceptable.
Bunny leans forward. “Your mother tells us you’re working now.”
I almost laugh at the word “now.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m working again.”
“For Conti Enterprises,” Hugh continues.
There is a tiny pause. Bunny’s eyes brighten with the kind of interest people pretend is concern when they really want gossip.
“Conti Enterprises,” he says. “That’s Mario Conti’s company, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting choice,” Bunny says.
My mother gives me a look that asks me to answer this gracefully.
“It’s been a good position so far,” I say.
“What exactly are you doing there?” Hugh asks.
“I’m Mario Conti’s administrative assistant.”
Bunny blinks once. “Administrative assistant?”
There are tones people use when they mean to ask why you have fallen so far.
This is one of them.
“Yes,” I say. “The role is more complex than the title.”
“I’m sure,” Bunny says, though she is clearly not sure of anything except that a woman who once organized seven-figure charity galas should not be answering phones for Mario Conti.
My father takes a sip of Scotch. “Julia is taking some time to decide what comes next.”
That is news to me.
“I’m working,” I say again, keeping my tone even. “That is what comes next.”
My father’s eyes move to mine. Brief warning. Gentle enough for the room. Clear enough for me.
“Of course,” he says.
My mother touches Bunny’s arm. “Come, let’s go in. Dinner is ready.”
The dining room is exactly as it always is.
Long mahogany table. Silver candlesticks.
White roses in low crystal bowls. China with a thin gold rim.
Heavy curtains framing windows that look out over a garden lit well enough to be seen from inside.
The room is beautiful in the way a museum room is beautiful.
Preserved, expensive, and unwilling to let anyone get too comfortable.
I sit where my mother directs me, which is to her right, while she sits next to my father at the head of the table. Hugh takes the seat to the left of my father, his wife next to him. Which puts me right across from Bunny.
The first course is served almost immediately. A chilled soup in shallow bowls. Pretty. Pale. Garnished with something green I cannot identify.
I take a spoonful and taste cucumber, cream, and obligation.
Hugh talks about a development near the river.
My father talks around a zoning issue that could put me to sleep if I weren’t so well-practiced.
Bunny asks my mother about a museum benefit.
My mother gives a polished answer about the committee, the donors, and the unfortunate floral direction last year.
I sit straight, eat when appropriate, and remember how to be decorative without looking vacant.
It is like putting on an old coat that never fit well.
“Julia always had a gift for events,” Bunny says when the salad comes out. “Do you remember the Art Institute benefit she worked on? What year was that, Suzanne?”
“Three years ago,” my mother says.
“Four,” I correct before I can stop myself.
My mother smiles. “Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it was beautiful.”
“Julia saved the seating chart,” Bunny says. “I remember that. There was some dreadful issue with the Caldwell woman and her ex-husband.”
“His new wife,” my mother says.
“Yes, exactly. A nightmare.”
“It wasn’t too difficult,” I say.
My father looks mildly amused. “You came home and said you wanted to fake your own death.”
Hugh laughs. Bunny does too. My mother smiles because apparently that line is acceptable if my father says it.
“I was younger then,” I say.
“More dramatic,” my father says.
No one else would notice the edge beneath it.
The next course arrives. Fish, small and careful, arranged beside vegetables that have never been allowed near butter. The conversation turns to politics, then avoids politics, then circles back to it under the safer name of public service.
Hugh asks my father about the courts. My father gives him just enough. Bunny asks my mother about someone’s daughter who has married someone’s son in what everyone at the table clearly agrees is a good match on paper.
Then Bunny looks at me.
“And Harrison,” she says. “How is he handling everything?”
My hand tightens around my fork.
One second. Maybe two.
My mother notices. My father notices. Bunny notices too, because Bunny notices everything that might be gossip.
Harrison Winthrop III.
There it is. His name in this house for the first time since I came back to Chicago. Spoken between courses, as if he were a wine pairing or a weather report.
I set my fork down carefully.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say, just as carefully.